In a major judgement, the Supreme Court has ruled that a tribal, even after converting into another religion, would not lose his “Scheduled Tribe” status unless it is shown that he has given up his tribal customs and observing only those practised in the adopted religion. “A member of a tribe despite his change in religion may remain a member of the tribe if he continues to follow the tribal traits and customs,” a Bench comprising Chief Justice VN Khare, Justice SB Sinha and Justice SH Kapadia said in a recent judgement. This judgement came in an unusual case where a person accused of outraging the modesty of a scheduled tribe girl questioned the police decision to charge him with SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The accused contended that the family of the girl had converted into Christianity around 200 years back and were not following the tribal customs. Hence, they could not be classified as tribals, he alleged. While remitting the matter to the trial court to take into account evidence in this regard, the Bench said “we are of the opinion that although as a broad proposition of law it cannot be accepted that merely by change of religion, a person ceases to be a member of scheduled tribe, but the question as to whether he ceases to be a member, thereof, or not, must be determined by the appropriate court as such a question would depend upon the fact of each case.” The apex Court referred to Article 342 of the Constitution dealing with Scheduled Tribes and said its object was to provide a right for the purpose of grant of protection to the STs having regard to their economic and educational backwardness. The Bench referred to an earlier decision of the Supreme Court where it had decided a question whether a Ceylonese lady marrying a member of the Scheduled Tribe would become a member of that Tribe by marriage? The court had said that only by reason of marriage a woman does not become a member of the tribe, but only in the event, she was accepted as such by the other members of the tribe and approved by the Panchayat that she could be considered as a member of that tribe. “The question as to whether a person is a member of the tribe or has been accepted as such, despite his conversion to another religion, is essentially a question of fact,” the Bench observed. After looking into various authorities on tribes and court cases, the Bench said, “upon conversion, a person may be governed by a different law than the law governing the community to which he originally belonged but that would not mean that notwithstanding such conversion, he may continue to be a member of the tribe.”